Dragon*Con
Whew! I will tell about my new job soon, once I a) have time and b) start doing what I'm actually supposed to do instead of mostly subbing for a para in kindergarten, although that was obviously fun, too. There are a lot of fascinating differences between this school and others I've been in. Or I think they're fascinating, and it's my journal. Also of course the kid stories will commence.
Because of said job and tutoring, I didn't spend nearly as much time as planned with my sister, but time I did spend generally exceeded expectations. More on that might come as well, but that will take some thinking to balance putting stuff in context with floods of TMI.
And then when my sister left, I could have just relaxed. Caught up on replying to comments. Picked my new health insurance. Stopped neglecting planning for the major event we have planned for next July 10. Read, did laundry, hit the gym. SLEPT. I did sleep, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday before church. And then I got totally impulsively frivolous, and WAS IT FUN OR WHAT!
There is a thing in Atlanta called Dragon*Con. It is insane. Atlanta HP people convinced us to attend at least part. Wow!
It was soo cool! Except actually un-cool. Super-nerdy, really. Dragon*Con is a crazy-huge (30,000+ attendees in 2007) convention for sci-fi, fantasy, comics, costuming, tv, movies, gaming, and stuff. It takes place in four hotels in downtown Atlanta and there are people in costumes all over the streets. The costumes are incredible - detailed, creative, funny, scary, beautiful, everything. Lots of famous people do panels and signings and there are vendors and parties and all sorts of things. Even after the programming ends there are still thousands of people milling around taking it all in late into the night.
A lot of our friends from Atlanta HP had been telling us how great it was. We weren't ready to commit to the whole four days, especially with my sister here, but our group was running a game of Are You a Death Eater in the YA Lit track room 11:30 to whenever Saturday night and were trying to get as many of us as possible to show up in our new shirts and maybe find new members, so we thought we'd check it out, and it was enough to decide it was worth it to get a badge for Sunday to see some more. I don't even know how to describe, but there was just so much to take in, all the time. The costumes were so detailed it was like being there with the real thing, and even the fandoms I knew nothing about were fascinating. Like this one called Steam Punk? Looked so much fun. We helped clean up from Death Eater, so we were there till like four, walked to the car, drove home, picked out clothes for the Yule Ball, and slept a few hours before getting up to get in line to register the next day.
The highlight of the daytime hours was probably Ash getting to meet and have his picture taken with Felicia Day, who has done some Joss Whedon stuff but is idolized by him for a web series she's doing about a WoW group called The Guild. He was so adorably shy and excited.
The highlight of the evening was definitely the Yule Ball. We got generically dance-pretty, but there were a ton of great costumes, HP and non-HP, and it was so fun and funny to watch the characters interact. There were a couple good Snapes, and one in a black kilt, and a bunch of very good Draco Malfoys making the rounds, and a ton of Lunas, and a spot-on movie!Yule Ball Hermione that seriously I thought might have been Emma in disguise as herself, and an absolutely excellent HBP movie! Ron (with a box of chocolates) that turned out to be a girl but they danced together a few times so we saw Ron and Hermione dance at the Yule Ball! There were tons and tons of other great costumes, too, and a bunch of young Star Trek fans in red uniforms (hee, redshirts) came and stayed a few hours in, and they were really funny, too. And of course Davy and Jack, although they left. And there was a really creepy bloody Harry for the Thriller dance reenactment.
And a few hours in someone trotted out a sort of demonic-looking cardboard cutout drawing of Edward Cullen with a 22-pack, and started dancing him around, and then he was crowd surfing, and then he was being pierced by wands, and had his head cut off, and the headless body was crowd surfing, and the head was just being tossed overhead like the balloons, and then people were dancing with the headless cut-out and cheering.
But the best part wasn't the costumes, it was the camaraderie. Sure, we knew our Atlanta HP folks, and there were some other groups as well, but for the most part we were just random people having fun. Circles for dancers kept forming with really funny combos pairing up inside, and everyone cheered for everyone, especially when Mad Eye Moody did the limbo, and one of our Atl HP friends had a grey top hat that was doing the rounds as the way of tapping who'd be next in the middle, and we all got into a giant swaying circle for Don't Stop Believing and it was really nice.
The music was a sort of crazy variety, I guess to please the generations, with a lot of cheesy swing and stuff thrown in to dance silly to. It was a little drowned out, so there was one point when a new song started and everyone started screaming, but I had no idea what it was, and neither did the friend with the hat, until finally we heard everyone shout, "Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips!" and we both said, "Ohhhh! It's THAT song!" at the same time.
And afterwards we played some more Death Eater with some more new people (including Ron Weasley and Delores Umbridge) but we were all really tired so then we staggered home. I can see how having a hotel room would be really nice for staying more than a day (We borrowed friends' to stash our dance clothes and change in.) and we are totally tempted to try to do a lot more panels (We only attended three.) and things next year.
Ending on a funny note, Ashwin danced bravely quite a bit, but sat at the table with some of our older and injured members quite a bit too. At one point, a guy came up to him and said, "I see you're here with a lot of girls," and invited us all through him to a keg party upstairs at 2. "I see you're here with a lot of girls." :p
Oh! And on the escalator we were handed a little bottle of Vampire Diaries hand-sanitizing hemoglobin. It was red and globby and gross! But 60% alcohol.
I only took a few photos. I have to get less nervous about breaking my camera by taking it out, and I thought Ash would take more while I was dancing, but here are some.
My favorite
Cedward in Gryffindor from the YA Lit room, not the hand-drawn Yule Ball Edward, but still funny
Rita Skeeter
Because of said job and tutoring, I didn't spend nearly as much time as planned with my sister, but time I did spend generally exceeded expectations. More on that might come as well, but that will take some thinking to balance putting stuff in context with floods of TMI.
And then when my sister left, I could have just relaxed. Caught up on replying to comments. Picked my new health insurance. Stopped neglecting planning for the major event we have planned for next July 10. Read, did laundry, hit the gym. SLEPT. I did sleep, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday before church. And then I got totally impulsively frivolous, and WAS IT FUN OR WHAT!
There is a thing in Atlanta called Dragon*Con. It is insane. Atlanta HP people convinced us to attend at least part. Wow!
It was soo cool! Except actually un-cool. Super-nerdy, really. Dragon*Con is a crazy-huge (30,000+ attendees in 2007) convention for sci-fi, fantasy, comics, costuming, tv, movies, gaming, and stuff. It takes place in four hotels in downtown Atlanta and there are people in costumes all over the streets. The costumes are incredible - detailed, creative, funny, scary, beautiful, everything. Lots of famous people do panels and signings and there are vendors and parties and all sorts of things. Even after the programming ends there are still thousands of people milling around taking it all in late into the night.
A lot of our friends from Atlanta HP had been telling us how great it was. We weren't ready to commit to the whole four days, especially with my sister here, but our group was running a game of Are You a Death Eater in the YA Lit track room 11:30 to whenever Saturday night and were trying to get as many of us as possible to show up in our new shirts and maybe find new members, so we thought we'd check it out, and it was enough to decide it was worth it to get a badge for Sunday to see some more. I don't even know how to describe, but there was just so much to take in, all the time. The costumes were so detailed it was like being there with the real thing, and even the fandoms I knew nothing about were fascinating. Like this one called Steam Punk? Looked so much fun. We helped clean up from Death Eater, so we were there till like four, walked to the car, drove home, picked out clothes for the Yule Ball, and slept a few hours before getting up to get in line to register the next day.
The highlight of the daytime hours was probably Ash getting to meet and have his picture taken with Felicia Day, who has done some Joss Whedon stuff but is idolized by him for a web series she's doing about a WoW group called The Guild. He was so adorably shy and excited.
The highlight of the evening was definitely the Yule Ball. We got generically dance-pretty, but there were a ton of great costumes, HP and non-HP, and it was so fun and funny to watch the characters interact. There were a couple good Snapes, and one in a black kilt, and a bunch of very good Draco Malfoys making the rounds, and a ton of Lunas, and a spot-on movie!Yule Ball Hermione that seriously I thought might have been Emma in disguise as herself, and an absolutely excellent HBP movie! Ron (with a box of chocolates) that turned out to be a girl but they danced together a few times so we saw Ron and Hermione dance at the Yule Ball! There were tons and tons of other great costumes, too, and a bunch of young Star Trek fans in red uniforms (hee, redshirts) came and stayed a few hours in, and they were really funny, too. And of course Davy and Jack, although they left. And there was a really creepy bloody Harry for the Thriller dance reenactment.
And a few hours in someone trotted out a sort of demonic-looking cardboard cutout drawing of Edward Cullen with a 22-pack, and started dancing him around, and then he was crowd surfing, and then he was being pierced by wands, and had his head cut off, and the headless body was crowd surfing, and the head was just being tossed overhead like the balloons, and then people were dancing with the headless cut-out and cheering.
But the best part wasn't the costumes, it was the camaraderie. Sure, we knew our Atlanta HP folks, and there were some other groups as well, but for the most part we were just random people having fun. Circles for dancers kept forming with really funny combos pairing up inside, and everyone cheered for everyone, especially when Mad Eye Moody did the limbo, and one of our Atl HP friends had a grey top hat that was doing the rounds as the way of tapping who'd be next in the middle, and we all got into a giant swaying circle for Don't Stop Believing and it was really nice.
The music was a sort of crazy variety, I guess to please the generations, with a lot of cheesy swing and stuff thrown in to dance silly to. It was a little drowned out, so there was one point when a new song started and everyone started screaming, but I had no idea what it was, and neither did the friend with the hat, until finally we heard everyone shout, "Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips!" and we both said, "Ohhhh! It's THAT song!" at the same time.
And afterwards we played some more Death Eater with some more new people (including Ron Weasley and Delores Umbridge) but we were all really tired so then we staggered home. I can see how having a hotel room would be really nice for staying more than a day (We borrowed friends' to stash our dance clothes and change in.) and we are totally tempted to try to do a lot more panels (We only attended three.) and things next year.
Ending on a funny note, Ashwin danced bravely quite a bit, but sat at the table with some of our older and injured members quite a bit too. At one point, a guy came up to him and said, "I see you're here with a lot of girls," and invited us all through him to a keg party upstairs at 2. "I see you're here with a lot of girls." :p
Oh! And on the escalator we were handed a little bottle of Vampire Diaries hand-sanitizing hemoglobin. It was red and globby and gross! But 60% alcohol.
I only took a few photos. I have to get less nervous about breaking my camera by taking it out, and I thought Ash would take more while I was dancing, but here are some.
My favorite
Cedward in Gryffindor from the YA Lit room, not the hand-drawn Yule Ball Edward, but still funny
Rita Skeeter